Named after a Greek mythological character, Pygmalion is the most successful play written by George Bernard Shaw. The play reveals the story of a poor flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who's being transformed into a duchess by the phonetic professor Henry Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering.
The very first act of the play is revealing a collision between two different classes. This contrast suggests the whole direction of the story. The meeting between Eliza, a member of London's lower class, and the famous phonetic professor Higgins and his fellow Mr Pickering is putting the base of the whole work.
From the way professor Higgins is referring to the flower girl, we can see how the lower class's members were treated so we can guess how the interaction between them would be.
Higgins keeps on treating her badly. He does so, although he claims to be ‘free of malice’. He is provoked by what a challenge the flower girl might be: “It’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low, so horribly dirty.” Higgins promises to turn her into “a Duchess out of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe” and authoritatively rejects the advice he receives, “what is to become of her?”. The stage is bound to be conflictual ever since Eliza walks on Wimpole Street. This is a reflection of Shaw`s opinion over the conflict of sexes. Seeing that none of them is likely to accept change easily, disputes, misunderstanding and vengeful acts will happen.
From the beginning Mr Higgins has cold, rather harsh attitude towards Eliza. The very first time he addressed her with : "silly girl", which is not showing only his pride, but also his regard towards women at all (as we see later in the play, when he says to his mother: Can't waste time with young women. They're idio...
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...e quite fond of her. His words are offending to because she thinks he is trying to manipulate her, so that she will continue being his maid.
Eventually, after one more argument, Higgins is again in control of the situation, and he tells Eliza that he thinks she will come back. He feels rather satisfied, thinking he won the bet and she would not leave. In his opinion, the fact that he was right stands proof of how good of a teacher he is.
It is unclear what Eliza`s feelings are. When she is told by Higgins that she would come back, Eliza thinks that he might be right and that she might not be able to resist him but we will never find out, since the play has an open ending. It remains a mystery whether Eliza decides to live on her own and be a flower girl, independent of Higgins, or risk coming back to him and spending the rest of her life tending to an old bachelor.
At the start of the novel, Eliza Haywood places her protagonist in a very interesting, unique position, with regards to society of the time. The nameless main character is first illustrated in a playhouse, observing the interactions of the strangers around her. She notices a prostitute, surrounded by a swarm of men. “She could not help testifying her contempt of men who...threw away their time in such a manner, to some Ladies...the greater was her wonder, that men, some of whom she knew were accounted to have wit, should have tastes for very depraved” (257-258.) “Fantomina”, as she later comes to be called, oversees all of this. Haywood seems to put her above this crowd of men and prostitutes, while she observes and makes judgments on the nature of their behaviors. She expresses that she is disgusted by the mindlessness of the men in this situation. One might argue that this depicts a reversal of gender roles. Typically, men would look at women in this way, and the male character wo...
From the beginning of The Coquette Eliza Wharton is a headstrong, freedom-seeking woman. Having escaped her impending marriage with the death of her fiancé, Eliza is determined to enjoy herself, regardless of the consequences. Eliza disregards the warnings she receives from those around her, she disregards Major Sanford’s past, and she disregards the societal impact her actions will undoubtedly have. Eliza is reckless with her reputation and virtue and she pays the price.
Sanford, “a pretentious rake” (Foster 818), was a bad influence; Boyer was boring and pompous, but polite and respectable. Obviously, either of the two choices could lead to her downfall. So, it was a choice between two evils, but Boyer from all indications appeared to be a better choice. However, “Brought up to understand the behavior expected of a proper young woman of her station, Eliza is not an immoral person” (Foster 818). So, Eliza had a strong sense of what is wrong and what is right based on her upbringing; but despite this, she had some difficulties keeping to her morals, and still ended up making a poor choice of a partner. In my opinion, she did not make a very good choice, but what happened to her in the end is not entirely her fault, but a combination of her poor choices, and the fate she met. She knew the kind of person Sanford was, and her friends did warn her that “Many have been the victims of his treachery” (Foster 864). In her letter to Eliza, Lucy Freeman says “Methinks I can gather from your letters, a predilection for this Major Sanford. But he is a rake, my dear friend; and can a lady of your delicacy and refinement think of forming a connection with a man of that character? I hope not… you will not find a more excellent partner than Mr. Boyer. Whatever you reasonably expect in a lover, a
Eliza Wharton has sinned. She has also seduced, deceived, loved, and been had. With The Coquette Hannah Webster Foster uses Eliza as an allegory, the archetype of a woman gone wrong. To a twentieth century reader Eliza's fate seems over-dramatized, pathetic, perhaps even silly. She loved a man but circumstance dissuaded their marriage and forced them to establish a guilt-laden, whirlwind of a tryst that destroyed both of their lives. A twentieth century reader may have championed Sanford's divorce, she may have championed the affair, she may have championed Eliza's acceptance of Boyer's proposal. She may have thrown the book angrily at the floor, disgraced by the picture of ineffectual, trapped, female characters.
"Trifles," a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell, is a cleverly written story about a murder and more importantly, it effectively describes the treatment of women during the early 1900s. In the opening scene, we learn a great deal of information about the people of the play and of their opinions. We know that there are five main characters, three men and two women. The weather outside is frighteningly cold, and yet the men enter the warm farmhouse first. The women stand together away from the men, which immediately puts the men against the women. Mrs. Hale?s and Mrs. Peters?s treatment from the men in the play is reflective of the beliefs of that time. These women, aware of the powerless slot that has been made for them, manage to use their power in a way that gives them an edge. This power enables them to succeed in protecting Minnie, the accused. "Trifles" not only tells a story, it shows the demeaning view the men have for the women, the women?s reaction to man?s prejudice, and the women?s defiance of their powerless position.
In order to understand the main idea of the play, it is important to understand details of the background of the author as it will help to illustrate a possible connection to the play.
Higgins and Eliza still sharing the archetypes of the teacher and student get into an argument. The argument starts with Higgins explaining that he does not specifically treat her poorly but treats everyone poorly. Higgins explains, “the question is not whether I treat rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better,” (Shaw, 77). Eliza threatened to leave although Higgins explained that she has no money or skill besides speaking properly and proposes that she marry someone rich. Insulted, Eliza threatened to marry Freddy which deeply bothers Higgins because he feels that the idea is a waste of his work on specifically on someone like him. This particular detail shows how Higgins does value his creation and work of art not wanting it to be wasted. In the end, Eliza leaves and later ends up marrying Freddy who together opens a flower shop. Even though there is some similarity in the theme of loving one’s own creation, Shaw’s Pygmalion does not compare to the archetypes in the myth Ovid’s Pygmalion as the movie did.
In Pygmalion, the two professors decided to help Eliza Doolittle, only because Professor Pickering made a bet with Professor Higgins that he would be able to change Liza into a lady by the time the ambassador’s garden party came around. Pickering
... as being an ideal and virtuous women because she is dignified and views marriage as a form of prostitution, making her a character that is not sexualized. Because Eliza is embodied as being a perfect woman, she is similar to women in earlier works. The Country Wife is a more ideal representation of what women are because real women are flawed and as the play suggests, women should be allowed to be what they want to be instead of allowing others to decide for them. Despite Pygmalion’s advocacy of equality between men and women, it idolizes flawless women, which contradicts with its’ message of equality.
The play Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, the musical, are the same story. The only major difference between the two, is that My Fair Lady has songs added to the dialogue. I believe the musical version is more enjoyable because the music adds more feeling to the story.
... her true self begins to come out for the first time in months. She starts talking and acting like the flower girl she used to be instead of Eliza, the girl Higgins made her.
I don’t matter, I suppose’” (Berst 99). Eliza’s actions can be felt as a Cinderella impulse coming from her (Berst 99). Eliza worked hard to get through the lessons with Higgins and had won that bet, so she deserves the credit for the hard work she put in. It seems that Eliza at this point is lonely and probably wanted someone in her life to tell her she was doing the right thing, she has accomplished things she wanted to do for herself.
In 1913, the Irish playwright adapted the Greek myth to modern-day England and based it on a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, who makes a bet that he can train a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, in order to pass her for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by acquiring a gentle
Shaw finally found his specialty around 1885 when William Archer suggested that he became a playwright. The play he is most well known for is Pygmalion. It is a classic play that comes from an ancient myth in which a statue is made of an ideal woman, and by prayer to the gods she is brought to life.
Professor Higgins is seen throughout Pygmalion as a very rude man. While one may expect a well educated man, such as Higgins, to be a gentleman, he is far from it. Higgins believes that how you treat someone is not important, as long as you treat everyone equally. The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another. -Higgins, Act V Pygmalion. Higgins presents this theory to Eliza, in hope of justifying his treatment of her. This theory would be fine IF Higgins himself lived by it. Henry Higgins, however, lives by a variety of variations of this philosophy. It is easily seen how Higgins follows this theory. He is consistently rude towards Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and his mother. His manner is the same to each of them, in accordance to his philosophy. However the Higgins we see at the parties and in good times with Pickering is well mannered. This apparent discrepancy between Higgins' actions and his word, may not exist, depending on the interpretation of this theory. There are two possible translations of Higgins' philosophy. It can be viewed as treating everyone the same all of the time or treating everyone equally at a particular time. It is obvious that Higgins does not treat everyone equally all of the time, as witnessed by his actions when he is in "one of his states" (as Mrs. Higgins' parlor maid calls it).